Author: John Hammer

Downtown Greensboro is undergoing a $25 million streetscape project that is going to transform some of the streets in the downtown from roads into pedestrian-cyclist-outdoor dining- and bench-sitting friendly streets. But one major problem with the downtown is that it has two “roads” that cut right through the middle – Friendly Avenue and Market Street.

The video of the illegal closed meeting of the Greensboro City Council on Tuesday, April 27 is now available on the city website at http://greensboro.granicus.com/player/clip/4406?view_id=2&redirect=true That video makes it clear that the City Council work session was in fact illegal and that the city knew or should have known that it was illegal before the meeting started.

On April 30, Greensboro Field Operations Department Director Dale Wyrick is retiring, and it is a more momentous occasion than it might seem.

The release of police body worn camera videos has become an even more controversial issue with the video of the shooting of Andrew Brown in Elizabeth City, North Carolina, being withheld. The Greensboro Police Officers Association has jumped into that fray with a letter dated Wednesday, April 28 to Gov. Roy Cooper and Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson.

Republican 13th District Congressman Ted Budd has announced he is running for the open US Senate seat in 2022.

Earlier this month, the Greensboro City Council decided to wait and see what the North Carolina General Assembly was going to do about the 2021 municipal elections. The answer to that question is -– nothing.

The Greensboro City Council held a 15-minute illegal closed meeting on Tuesday, April 27.

In 2018, when 6th District Rep. Kathy Manning was running for Congress against 13th District Rep. Ted Budd, Manning ran a campaign add that said she would not vote for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.  Manning lost that race in 2018, but when elected to represent the 6th District in 2020, she cast her first vote in the House for Pelosi for speaker and has supported Pelosi on every vote since.

The Greensboro City Council has scheduled a “hybrid” work session for 2 p.m. Tuesday, April 27. Beginning this month, the City Council has been holding what it calls hybrid meetings where most or all of the City Council, along with city staff, is in the council chambers, but the public is not allowed to attend in person.  Public participation is virtual.  However, the public is rarely allowed to speak at work sessions.

The Fresh Market, headquartered in downtown Greensboro, has been ranked “The Best Supermarket in America” for 2021 by USA Today. The ranking comes from a USA Today 10Best Readers’ Choice Awards.

Apple announced today that it will invest over $1 billion in North Carolina, building a new campus and engineering hub in Research Triangle Park in Wake County. The Apple campus will be over 1 million square feet and create over 3,000 new jobs with an average salary of $187,000.  Employees will work in fields such as machine learning, artificial intelligence and software engineering.

The Community Foundation of Greater Greensboro announced it had received the largest gift in its history, this week at the annual meeting. The contribution of $50 million is a bequest from Buddy Weill, who passed away in June 2020.  His gift will create a permanent field of interest endowment for capital expansions and improvement of facilities that support eldercare and healthcare.

On Thursday, April 22, former Greensboro Zoning Commissioner Tony Collins sent a letter of apology by email to each member of the Greensboro City Council.

Mayor Nancy Vaughan has scheduled two virtual town hall meetings to discuss what is being called a “safety/security ordinance.” The virtual meetings will be held Monday, April 26 from 2 to 3 p.m. and Monday, May 10 from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m.

The Greensboro City Council held its second hybrid meeting on Tuesday, April 20 and first hybrid business meeting.

The Greensboro City Council voted to hold a special work session on conducting an independent investigation into the death of Marcus Deon Smith.

Tony Collins was thrown off the Zoning Commission by a unanimous vote of the City Council at the meeting on Tuesday, April 20. Collins was removed from the Zoning Commission – which is an unpaid volunteer job – for, according to the words of Councilmember Sharon Hightower, exhibiting “white privilege and entitlement.”

Next month, the Greensboro Coliseum parking lot will take a trip back through time, way back to the period when dinosaurs roamed Earth. May 14 through May 16 and May 19 through May 23, life sized, roaring and moving dinosaurs will be roaming the Coliseum parking lot.

The updated plans for the streetscape of Davie Street from McGee Street to Friendly Avenue and a portion of February 1 Place are available for the public to review and comment.

The Greensboro City Council will hold its one business meeting of the month on Tuesday, April 20 beginning at 5:30 p.m. This will be a “hybrid” meeting, which means that most or all of the City Council will be in the council chambers along with city staff, but the public including the media is not allowed to attend the meeting.  The council chambers is a large room and could easily accommodate a limited number of people with the recommended social distancing.

A lot of jobs were available at the Guilford County Hotel Association Job Fair held at the Greensboro Marriott Downtown at 304 N. Greene St. Friday, April 16. The hotel industry was well represented with tables manned with plenty of personnel.  Some even had cookies and goody bags for potential employees.

Mayor Nancy Vaughan has been pushing the idea of putting a bond referendum on the ballot this year. The bond referendum so far is short on details and long on enthusiasm for the city to borrow more money.

Wednesday, April 14 at 2:05 a.m., what some people still consider Tuesday night, there was another altercation at Tranquilo Bar and Restaurant in downtown Greensboro that required a police response.

A new organization of North Carolina teachers, Carolina Teachers Alliance, is holding launch parties on Saturday, April 17 in three cities across the state including Greensboro.

The Republican primary for the North Carolina US Senate seat currently held by Sen. Richard Burr got a new official candidate with the announcement by former North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory that he’s in the race.

Following City Council action on Tuesday, April 6, the starting salaries for police officers will be raised in September when a new class enters the Greensboro Police Academy.

Four people were stabbed Sunday, April 11 at Tranquilo Bar and Restaurant at 221 S. Elm St. in downtown Greensboro. None of the four had life threatening injuries, according to the police report. In response to that incident Sunday, Greensboro Mayor Nancy Vaughan posted the following on Facebook at www.facebook.com/nancy.vaughan

The 70 or so Republicans who attended the monthly meeting of the Guilford County GOP on Monday, April 12 got a pleasant surprise. The top Republican in North Carolina state government was in attendance. North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, who lives in Greensboro and before getting involved in state politics attended Guilford County Republican Party meetings regularly, was there sitting in the crowd with his wife, Yolanda, just like old times.

North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper signed the “Excellent Public Schools Act” into law on Friday, April 9. This was purported to be one of those controversial laws proposed by the Republicans in the legislature that might squeak through on a straight party-line vote. Although some in the education bureaucracy saw this as highly controversial, the North Caroline Legislature did not.  The Excellent Public Schools Act passed the state Senate on a 48-0 vote and passed the state House on a 113-5 vote.  Democrats and Republicans in Raleigh disagree on a huge number of issues, including education issues, but not on the teaching reading based on the Science of Reading.

This week the Greensboro City Council should be getting thank you notes from Guilford County and High Point. The Guilford County Board of Commissioners is expected to accept a Justice Assistance Grant (JAG) of $250,000, which is $136,900 for the Guilford County Sheriff’s Department and $113,000 for the High Point Police Department. Originally, $138,000 of that grant was awarded to the Greensboro Police Department, $61,000 to the Guilford County Sheriff’s Department and $51,000 to the High Point Police Department.

The Greensboro Planning Department doesn’t give up easily. Planning Director Sue Schwartz and Planning Manager Steve Galanti presented the department’s plan for changes to the Airport Overlay Districts at the March 4 City Council work session.

The week of Monday, April 12 is going to bring a big change to 16,000 residences in Greensboro. April 12 is the day the Greensboro Field Operations Department will start running new routes and the garbage, yard waste and recycling pickup day is going to change for 16,000 households.

Mayor Nancy Vaughan at the meeting on Tuesday, April 6 ended an effort by city staff to reduce the service provided by Access GSO, the city’s handicapped transit service.

According to statistics, Greensboro is in the midst of violent crime epidemic.

In normal times, a Greensboro City Council election would be held this year.

The Tuesday, April 6 City Council meetings were the first where the City Council has been together in the council chambers since April 2020.

The Greensboro City Council unanimously approved the next stage of the Union Square redevelopment project at the Tuesday, April 6 meeting.

Greensboro City Councilmember Justin Outling finally pushed the City Council into taking some action to provide additional assistance to the Greensboro Police Department at the Tuesday, April 6 City Council meeting.

The Interactive Resource Center (IRC) received its seventh surplus vehicle from the City of Greensboro by an 8-0 vote of the City Council on Tuesday, April 6.

The city has issued another revision to its list of vehicles donated to nonprofits, adding two more donated vehicles. Here is the updated list of all vehicles the City of Greensboro has donated to nonprofit organizations since 2010.

The Greensboro City Council will hold two meetings in the council chambers in city hall on Tuesday, April 6. And that’s big news.

The article that was originally posted as “IRC Only Nonprofit to Receive Surplus Vehicles From City” has been corrected and reposted as “IRC Rare Nonprofit To Receive Surplus Vehicles From City.”

At the Tuesday, April 6 meeting, the City Council is expected to approve giving a surplus vehicle to the Interactive Resource Center (IRC). The executive director of the IRC is At-large City Councilmember Michelle Kennedy. In the past 10 years, the City of Greensboro has not donated a surplus vehicle to any nonprofit organization other than the IRC.  If the City Council approves this gift to the IRC, it will be the sixth vehicle the City Council has approved for donation to the IRC in the past two years.

On Tuesday, April 6, the Greensboro City Council plans to give a surplus van to the Interactive Resource Center (IRC). The donation is item 14 on the April 6 meeting agenda, which lists NC General Statute 160A-280 as giving the city the authority to make this gift. The IRC provides services for the homeless population during the day, and the executive director of the IRC is City Councilmember Michelle Kennedy.

The Greensboro City Council has scheduled another work session on the Greensboro Police Department for Tuesday, April 6 at 3:30 p.m.

For those hesitant to get the COVID-19 vaccine or who just haven’t gotten around to it yet, here is an extra incentive – a free hamburger. The World of Beer Bar & Kitchen at 1310 Westover Terrace is offering a free hamburger on Wednesday, April 7 to anyone who shows proof they have received their COVID-19 vaccination.

Blue Duck is a micromobility company that will provide electric scooters and electric bikes for rent in Greensboro. On Thursday, April 1, Blue Duck is waiving the $1 unlock fee for every ride in Greensboro.

The police staffing study recently completed by the Greensboro Police Department (GPD) and the Budget and Evaluation Department goes into detail in comparing police salaries with other cities in North Carolina.

Greensboro has 683 authorized sworn police officers and currently has 611 fully trained sworn police officers out on the streets. The recent staffing study completed by Police Department in conjunction with the Greensboro Budget and Evaluation Department recommends that Greensboro have 16 additional authorized police officers, which would raise the full staffing level to 699.

Last December, Downtown Greensboro Inc. (DGI) reinvented the Christmas Parade in the time of COVID-19 and is now doing the same for the traditional Easter egg hunt in 2021. DGI’s Eggstravaganza, being held from Thursday, April 1 through Saturday, April 3, is not the typical Easter egg hunt for toddlers with baskets.  In fact, it would be difficult for a toddler with a basket to participate unless that toddler had a smart phone in the other hand.